IISc, IIT-D in top 200 rankings MIT and Harvard hold the top two positions in the world university rankings

IISc, IIT-D in top 200 rankings
MIT and Harvard hold the top two positions in the world university rankings

India has made its debut in the Quacquarelli Symonds’ (QS) list of top 200 universities globally. The Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT-D) have been placed 147 and 179 respectively in the QS World University Rankings for 2015-16, which has the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard at the top two positions.

While IIT-D has improved its position from the previous years’ rank of 235, IISC Bangalore is a new entry in the ranking list. None of the Indian universities has made it to the QS’ top 200 in the previous editions.
According to the QS list, there are 14 Indian institutions in the World University Rankings and half of them are among the global 400. “While the IITs and the Institute of Science have all progressed in this edition, the large comprehensive universities, such as the University of Delhi and the University of Mumbai have lost ground, principally because of the normalisation by faculty applied to the research indicator but also due to deterioration in other dimensions as well,” the QS says in its release.

In the list of top 300 are, IIT Bombay, which was placed at 222 last year has moved up to 202, IIT Madras up from 321 to 254 and IIT Kanpur at 271 from 300.

Jawaharlal Nehru University leads the Indian universities in Arts and Humanities table placed at 168th position while the University of Delhi is placed at 191 in this section and 191 in the Social Sciences and Management section.

Speaking to The Hindu, IIT-D Director K. Gupta said the improvement in the ranking was a result of the institute’s dedicated emphasis on improving the quality and quantum of research. “We are dedicated to excellence in teaching, research and innovation and we pay attention to the maintaining the best possible standards in these fields,” he said.

A step forward: IISc

“The rankings are largely due to our first undergraduate batch graduating this year. This was one of the criteria needed to feature in the global rankings,” said Anurag Kumar, Director, IISc, adding that the institute had ensured information was given in the correct format to facilitate proper reflection of the performance of the institute on the global stage. He believed the debut was a “step forward” for the institute. “Our performance has remained high. Other universities are catching up due to the impetus given to research in their regions. For us to be in the top 50, we need investment and support for our faculty,” he said.

Going beyond MAT on FIIs

As anticipated, the recently released Justice AP Shah Panel report strengthens the government’s resolve to put to rest the contentious issue of the imposition of minimum alternate tax (MAT) on foreign institutional investors (FII). Its prompt acceptance by the government undoubtedly communicates a firm message to the international community that it is willing to make changes to dispel the concerns on retrospective taxation.

The vexed issue of levy of MAT on FIIs arose due to an ambitious interpretation by the administration. While the primary issue with such levy and its validity has been a subject matter of a writ before the Mumbai High Court, the administration justified it by drawing from the order of the Authority for Advance Rulings (AAR) in the case of Castleton. Revenue had appealed at the Supreme Court against other orders of AAR which favoured the foreign companies’ stand in the matter. With the MAT-levy, most FIIs and FII associations skipped the administrative appeals option and instead sought constitutional remedy by filing writs at the high court level, and ultimately, at the apex court level.

An interpretational aspect on levy assumed significance after the introduction of Section 9A to the Income Tax Act (vide Finance Act, 2015), which clarified that having an investment fund manager will not render an FII to be deemed as having a place of business in India, the condition that triggers applicability of MAT. The said amendment was a progressive approach that encourages the presence of a fund manager in India to bolster FII investments without the latter having to worry about onerous tax obligations such as MAT—a demand the FII fraternity has raised with successive regimes at the Centre.

The interpretation by the taxman that the amendment is effective only April 1, 2015, onwards was erroneous on various counts. First, FII taxation has been in the statute since 1993, and the levy of MAT has never been a matter of debate. A simplified FII taxation, by way of fixed capital gains tax levy, was put in place by the law-makers to provide not just certainty to encourage flow of foreign funds, but enable fund managers to compute the precise return on investments for investors in such funds. The tax administration’s argument for MAT on foreign companies in general (those that aren’t FIIs) was dismissed by the AAR (in the Timken and Praxair cases) and Revenue did not by pursue appealing to higher courts, thereby indicating its finality.

An interpretation of Section 9A ought to be read as clarificatory in nature and nothing more. Courts have successively held that even if a clarification is prospective, it is supposed to be declaratory and has retrospective applicability. The argument that FIIs being exempt from MAT does not apply retrospectively is meaningless if the 2015 amended law itself is to be read as clarificatory. An argument that a similar case with respect for levy of MAT on a foreign company—Castleton is not an FII—is before the SC also did not justify MAT levy on FIIs. The matter before the SC against the AAR order is applicable to facts of Castleton and not binding on other foreign companies and certainly not on FIIs, which are subject to an independent tax regime.

That said, the government in its wisdom felt appropriate to constitute a committee chaired by Law Commission chairman Justice AP Shah. The key issues which Shah Panel examined were whether the MAT provisions extended to foreign companies, whether the FIIs could be considered to have a place of business in India notwithstanding that they do not have physical presence, and whether MAT provisions override the provisions of double taxation avoidance agreements.

Having analysed the legislative history and intent behind MAT, the panel concluded that MAT cannot be levied on FIIs. In doing so, it observed that MAT levy was introduced to plug an abuse by book-profit-making companies declaring dividends but not paying corporate tax due to tax concessions. Such intent was evident from successive Budget speeches, circulars issued by the CBDT explaining its introduction and numerous amendments. The panel reasoned that the MAT provisions would not apply to companies which do not have a place of business in India.

Since FIIs do not have a place of business in India and carry out their decision-making activities overseas (a concession made in 2015 budget to encourage fund managers to be present in India), the panel concluded that there cannot be a case for MAT levy. The panel concluded that MAT provisions cannot override the benefits under the tax treaties. The committee has recommended amendments to the law and clarifications indicating the inapplicability of the MAT provisions to FIIs prior to April 1, 2015.  It recommendations have been accepted by the government, and as an immediate relief (pending amendment to law), the Central Board of Direct Taxes has issued instructions to its officers to keep the proceedings in abeyance.

Interestingly, the committee has stopped short of recommendations on applicability of MAT on other foreign companies. Besides, nothing precludes a foreign company which doesn’t have a place of business in India from taking a position based on the panel’s recommendations. It should, however, not deter the government from treating non-FII foreign companies on the same footing as FIIs, thereby burying the entire debate. The implications of MAT controversy are a good reason for the government to conduct a comprehensive review of taxation of capital markets transaction. The Shome panel in 2013 made some useful recommendations, including a simplified regime and consistent tax rates agnostic to status of investors1institutional or private, domestic or foreign. I trust these recommendations will find way in successive budgets, given the importance of institutional investors to the growth of Indian capital markets.

Mediocrity over meritocracy

The time-worn lament by IT czar N R Narayana Murthy recently that there has not been a single invention from India in the last 60 years that became a household name globally, nor any idea that led to "earth shaking" invention to "delight global citizens" merits attention. Some four years ago, chairman of the scientific advisory council to the prime minister C N R Rao warned us of the intellectual decline in India.

This, he said, despite its economic progress while pointing out that India's contribution compared to, say, China and South Korea that have overtaken India on various indices including education and science and technology - to the top one per cent of the intellectual and scientific output is negligible.

Last year, President Pranab Mukherjee shared similar sentiments calling for "transformative ideas" to steer India's educational institutions from the "muddy waters of mediocrity". He took note of the fact that while US and China file lakhs of patent applications annually, India has to be content with a few thousands. Somewhat prescriptively, he ruled the poor neglect of research in India's higher educational structure.

Judging by quotients of righteousness, nothing could be more spot-on than Mukherjee's concerns shared across the spectrum of academic hierarchy. He observed that scholars obtain international recognition by doing their research work in foreign universities and not in Indian universities - Nobel laureates like Amartya Sen, Har Gobind Khurana, Subrahmanyam Chandrasekhar and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan being a few shining instances.

His remarks were based on the lackadaisical and unimaginative academic atmosphere in Indian varsities and educational institutions, which, despite accommodating over 20 million students, fail to find a place among the top 200 world class universities graded by world class agencies. It has often been suggested that the solution does not lie in hiking up the number of central universities and IITs and IIMs but rather in shoring up the standards of existing institutions.

In this abyss of mediocrity, little incentive is put on excellence, borne out by the allocation of a minuscule 3 per cent of GDP to education. As per a World Bank dataset for 2005-09, India's R&D expenditure was 0.81 per cent of the GDP, while the same was much more for other countries. It also showed that India had only 160 researchers per million population compared to a parallel figure of 5256 in Sweden, 6307 in Singapore, 5151 in Japan and 3838 in the United States.

The 2014 Global Innovation Index saw India go down 10 places (ranked 76) as compared to 2013 while other BRICS nations managed to improve their positions on the index. We all know how hobbled we are by a lack of critical infrastructure that failed to tap the energies of a thriving human resource. It is about time we internalised that the funding of fundamental research is an investment rather than a cost and it is for the economic rationalists to understand that basic discoveries in one field may represent "applications" of existing knowledge in another field which, in turn, might usher in both a financial return and an even greater social benefit. The Economic Survey for 2014-15, released earlier this year noted that the lower penetration into higher levels of education was leading to higher dropouts, especially among the secondary and upper primary students.

This resulted in accumulation of less educated and less skilled job seekers "at the bottom of the pyramid." It ascribed low employability levels as much to the poor quality of education as to the fact that fewer students opt for higher education. Incidentally, over 60 per cent of the students in Harvard or Stanford or MIT enrol for the PG and PhD programmes. For a country of a massive population size, elitism is often discounted in fear that anything having to deal with a minority is bound be undemocratic, ample testimony of which can be found in the instinct of government control over a few academic centres of excellence that we have.

Subjects of 'value'

The objective of education in India being reduced to employment and with dwindling atmospherics for fundamental research, we now see proliferation of only those streams/subjects that are of 'value' to the amorphous thing called market. It is not uncommon to see excellent scorers who are very good at 'cracking' an examination possessing little theoretical understanding of the subjects of his study.

If faculty and student recruitment are to be bound by the same principles of social justice that are mandated in the public education system, there is little room for meritocracy. Why we cannot produce class and a culture of excellence bears serious reflection.

A distinguished professor of English from Jadhavpur University once took serious exception to the brave talk about world-class universities arguing that the ills of education in India begin at the primary level, with poor school enrolment and high drop-out rates compounded by failures in health and nutrition. The fundamental problem of the Universities for Research and Innovation Bill, 2012 with the main objective to prop a few "innovation universities" as hubs of education, research and innovation was that it wanted to implant them as islands of excellence.

In this new-found zeal for control and ideological indoctrination, as purported by the Indian Institutes of Management Bill, 2015 by the dictates of which a government nod is required in many key issues - from the appointment of the board and its chairman to deciding the fee structure to the creation of new academic departments - what was once again forgotten that the viability of a university depends on its autonomy to sustain high standards and initiate innovation. The quality of public university system must be restored and without the basics of public education that starts from primary schools being revamped, excellence has little chance.

Millennium goalposts

The deadline for the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) is 31 December 2015. The concept will then be replaced by Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for the next 15 years. The UN General Assembly is scheduled to meet this month to incorporate the SDG in its post-2015 agenda. Before the new framework is set in motion, it is time to evaluate what the MDG efforts have achieved.

The initiative was conceived with a plan, a budget, and a specific mapping of responsibilities. Although a major UN effort, no single individual or organization has been made responsible for achieving the MDGs. Instead, numerous public, private, philanthropic and nonprofit actors, working together and independently in developed and developing countries have been involved in the effort. Given such complexities, the achievements do seem impressive. Before the MDG was formulated, there was no common framework for promoting global development. The goals have brought the diffused international development community closer.

After the Cold War ended, many rich countries cut their foreign aid budgets to turn their focus on domestic priorities. The results were distressing. Africa suffered stagnation with rising poverty, child deaths and a drop in life expectancy. The economic crisis and the threat of growing inequality plagued Asia and Latin America. At the 2000 UN Millennium Summit, member-countries agreed on a set of measurable, time-barred targets in the Millennium Declaration.

In 2001, these targets were packaged in eight sets of MDG - to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal primary education; promote gender equality and empower women; reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability; and forge global partnerships among countries and actors to achieve development goals. Each objective was subdivided into specific targets. For example, the first goal involved cutting by half between 2001 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $ 1.25 a day. At the Monterrey (Mexico) conference in March 2002, leaders set a benchmark for sharing the burden; they urged the developed countries to make concrete efforts towards the target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income (GNI) as official development assistance to developing countries. The 22 official OECD donor countries were contributing an average of 0.22 per cent of GNI to aid. Thus working towards a 0.7 per cent target implied tripling the total global support. The MDG represents the first global framework anchored in an explicit partnership between developed and developing countries.

The United States was initially hesitant to accept the MDG agenda. It had endorsed the UN Millennium Declaration and the Monterrey agreement but refused to support the MDG largely because it was seen as UN-dictated aid quotas. The subsequent dissent from other countries and pressure from the US media convinced Washington to modify its position. The US administration eventually endorsed the MDG publicly at the 2005 UN World Summit. Since 2003, the USA launched an emergency plan for AIDS relief. This has dramatically improved access to AIDS treatment in those countries of Africa that were committed to good governance. This programme was in many ways in line with the MDG effort but did not explicitly link to the goals.

In 2010, five years before the deadline, the world had already met the overarching objective of cutting extreme poverty by half. The population of the developing world living on less than $ 1.25 a day had dropped from 43 per cent in 1990 to roughly 21 per cent in 2010. The framework is not solely responsible for poverty reduction. Progress was already under way in China and other Asian countries long before the MDG was adopted. In China alone, the proportion of poor people came down from 60 per cent in 1990 to 12 per cent in 2010. In South Asia, it fell from 51 per cent to 28 per cent. Nevertheless, the MDG has kick-started progress where it was lacking as in Africa, which has experienced unprecedented economic growth and poverty-reduction. The MDG campaign has prompted support for small subsistence and cash-crop farms, and this has spurred growth in many low-income countries of Africa. Bangladesh has achieved the goal of having reduced poverty by half well ahead of the deadline.

The major success has been achieved in the sphere of health. The goals have prompted a huge increase in private sector and philanthropic assistance. Thanks to this global effort, malaria deaths have dropped by 25 per cent since 2000. Many pharmaceutical companies have manufactured medicines that are now more widely available in poor countries and new initiatives are coming up. In Senegal, child mortality has dropped by half, in Cambodia by 60 per cent. Rwanda has recorded an eight per cent average annual reduction in child mortality since 2000 - one of the fastest declines in history. Overall, despite the rapid global population growth, there has been a worldwide decline in the number of children dying before the age of five - specifically from 9.5 million in 2000 to 5.5 million in 2013.

No issue has been more closely interconnected with MDG than the HIV/AIDS treatment campaign. In 2000, nearly 30 million people were infected, the vast majority in Africa where over one million people were dying every year from the disease. At that time, large-scale AIDS treatment in Africa was deemed impossible. Spurred by the launch of MDG, the World Health Organisation introduced the “3 by 5” initiative in 2003. It envisaged the treatment of three million AIDS patients in Africa by 2005. By the end of that year, only 1.5 million people were being treated. The target could not be reached, but due to the interwoven AIDS- MDG campaign, the notion of service delivery targets has sunk in globally, and this has helped in the expansion of AIDS treatment. In 2013, more than eight million people were being treated worldwide.

The MDG has proved that with concentration and efforts, even the most persistent global problems can be tackled. The post-2015 goals should remain focused on eliminating the multiple dimensions of extreme poverty; it is also imperative to address the emerging challenges that include pressure on the environment, affecting the livelihood of millions, the growing number of middle-income countries with daunting internal poverty challenges, and the rapidly spreading non-communicable diseases. The wish-list for sustainable development for the next 15 years should, like the MDG, be restricted to eight to ten objectives.

The fresh goals also need to be matched with resources. Without the Monterrey agreements of 2002 and the financial commitments at the Gleneagles summit in 2005, the MDG might well have faded from the international agenda. According to one estimate, the G-8 ended up falling more than $ 10 billion short on its Africa pledges for 2010 alone. The post-2015 negotiations should get a clear picture of budgetary support by the contributing countries. But with austerity and slow growth across much of the rich world, aid budgets to developing and poor countries appear to be under threat.

Multilateral organizations, such as the World Bank and UN agencies should get more involved and identify benchmarks for post-2015 success. The world’s poorest should not be betrayed. There are still 1 billion people today who live on no more than $ 1.25 a day. Over the next 15 years, the world has a chance to eliminate extreme poverty.

www.samvegias.com

LEDs that communicate could create ‘smart’ environments

Disney researchers have created networking technology that makes it possible for LED lights not only to communicate with each other.

Disney researchers have demonstrated that light bulbs can do more that just illuminate our rooms — they could communicate with each other, with objects and with the Internet, to create ‘smart’ environments.

Transmitting signals via light is nothing new; Alexander Graham Bell showed that speech could be conveyed with light in the 1880s, years before speech was first transmitted via radio.

The Disney researchers, however, have created networking technology that makes it possible for LED lights not only to communicate with each other, but to do so in a way that is compatible with the Internet and its technical protocols.

Stefan Mangold, who heads Disney Research’s wireless research group, said these advances could give Visible Light Communication (VLC) an important role in the growing Internet of Things — the idea that objects can communicate with each other and share information to create smart environments.

“Communication with light enables a true Internet of Things as consumer devices that are equipped with LEDs but not radio links could be transformed into interactive communication nodes,” Mangold said.

“We’re not just talking about sensors, smartphones and appliances. This easily could include toys that have LEDs, creating an Internet of Toys in which toys can be accessed, monitored and acted on remotely,” Mangold said.

The researchers used off-the-shelf commercial LED light bulbs that they then modified so that they could send and receive visible light signals.

These modifications included a System-on-a-Chip running the Linux operating system, a VLC controller module with the protocol software and an additional power supply for the added electronics.

The researchers created software that makes the signals transmitted through this hardware compatible with Internet protocols.

They were thus able to create networks with a throughput of up to 1 kilobit per second.

These VLC-enabled bulbs could be used to broadcast beacons making it possible to detect the location of objects, linked into a network to route signal traffic or could be used to communicate with objects, researchers said.

“The ubiquitous presence of LED-based light bulbs that can be enhanced with VLC functionality, and the availability of LED-equipped devices, unleashes a wide range of opportunities and applications,” Mangold said.

OROP must go hand in hand with force restructuring

Finally, the One Rank One Pension, or OROP, is a reality, even if its content and financial impact continues to remain imprecise. It is a different matter that several important conditions not discussed with those agitating for OROP have been incorporated at the last minute and caused both frustration and anguish.

For example, it is not known how the clause for its non-applicability to those who had taken voluntary retirement (termed premature retirement or PMR in the armed forces) came to be incorporated in the official note at the last minute. Similarly, a provision has been inserted whereby pension will be determined by averaging the minimum and maximum of the pay bands for every rank, which is not OROP at all. It is almost certain that these two incongruities, which could only have been inserted through bureaucratic sleight of hand, will be challenged and struck down in the courts of law. The statements made by the prime minister create more doubt than clarity. For example, he has stressed that interests of jawans, widows and those disabled and sent out of service are uppermost in his mind and they will have full benefits of OROP, without making any mention of those who took PMR. If there is a lurking suspicion among these officers that they have been left 'high and dry' they may not be far wrong.

But this is not about OROP. Whatever may be its final shape and form, the fact is that it will result in a cash outgo of over Rs 12,000 crores annually, and the figure can only increase every year. The question that more importantly needs to be considered is whether this expense can be countered by economies that can or should be undertaken in the non-pension parts of Defence expenditure. This calls for some introspection, including by the armed forces. Until 1962, the strength of the Indian Army, post-World War II demobilisation, stood at around 285,000, the Indian Navy at about 16,000 and the Indian Air Force at some 30,000. Following the trauma of that conflict, the Army was authorised a manpower level of 825,000, a nearly three-fold increase so that it could fight a two-front war concurrently. Force levels approved for the navy and the air force at the same time (in 1964) ensured that, over a period of time, their manpower rose to about 35,000 and 60,000 respectively. Since then, the numbers have continued to increase for one reason or the other and the Indian Army today fields nearly 1,200,000, while the other two Services have also gone up to about 50,000 and 100,000, take a little here and there. In sum, uniformed manpower has increased greatly, with inevitable impact on ongoing expenditure that is required to pay, feed and equip them; not surprisingly, nearly 85 per cent of the army's budget goes to meet what is technically termed as revenue expenditure, leaving just 15 per cent for modernisation and technology upgrades and, therefore, leaving it to fight wars with 'what it has' - to quote a former Army Chief - rather than with what it should have. The navy and the air force are not so manpower-intensive and, consequently, are able to spend relatively more of their monetary allocations on capital acquisitions. What merits serious consideration, therefore, is whether we should continue as hitherto or make some course corrections.

Obviously, the first charge in any such exercise will be that of the army taking up as it does, almost half of the Defence budget. This brings us back to where it all began - ability and preparedness to fight land wars on two fronts simultaneously, on one side with Pakistan and on the other, with China. This may well have seemed inescapable after 1962 but despite all posturing and noises made by various sides, did not come about in 1965 and again in 1971, this when Pakistan was being militarily sliced into two, a calamity which should have resulted in some intervention by its ally. Today, the scenarios have changed dramatically. Not only are all three countries nuclear weapon states but their profiles and ambitions have also escalated. China is seeking parity with the US while India seeks to get to the level where China stands today. Neither country will move towards its goals by engaging the other militarily; such an interface can only act to the detriment of both. Pakistan stands in a different category. It has little capability, even interest, in challenging India through war; its aim of keeping us on the defensive is easily achieved by much lower-cost options such as acts of terror, sponsored or otherwise. The world at large is also not supportive of military conflicts between nation states and international pressure, difficult enough to counter in the wars fought so far, will be even more of an 'adversary' in future scenarios. In short, military conflict on one front is, itself, becoming a question mark, leave alone land wars on two fronts together. Our military strategy must recognise this reality.

The situation is quite different in the other two Services where the responsibilities are becoming more strategic rather than structured to just war fighting. The need to deploy air and sea power at long distances, in peace as much as in less-than-war scenarios is gaining priority and recent evacuations of our citizens from troubled areas, disaster assistance in tsunamis and protection of sea lanes of commerce are now well-defined tasks and responsibilities, not just some vague ideas. Our existing force structure, evolved in the 1960s after a traumatic defeat, is no longer capable of responding to the new scenario. There is a definite need to review holistically our emerging interests and responsibilities and formulate policies which will provide capabilities that can deliver what the Americans call 'more bang for the buck'. Manpower or 'boots on the ground' is clearly an essential ingredient of whatever capabilities we create but how many is the question which our planners and strategists must answer. It is nobody's thesis that drastic reductions are necessary or even desirable but phased restructuring is imperative. Given the extent of our land borders, the army will continue to have primacy in our military preparedness but it is necessary that the air and sea power arms are strengthened. As a very broad readjustment, our land component of manpower should be gradually brought down to about 1,000,000. To achieve this over a four-five year period is quite feasible if there is determination to do so. Fresh stock can be taken at that stage of what needs to be done further. This, of course, must go hand-in-glove with modernisation of all three forces and enough has been written about this by many to bear repetition. But this is much easier said than done. There will be any number of vested interests to 'ground' the proposed restructuring even before it begins and the strongest direction will be needed to take it through, in the armed forces hierarchy, in the associated bureaucracy and finally, and most important, in the political leadership.

MSME’s: Engine for Growth

MSME’s: Engine for Growth

Contributes

• 8% of GDP
• 40% of the total exports
• 45% of manufacturing input

Keeping in view the contribution of MSME’s in the growth of Indian Economy, its development hasbeen assigned an important role in India’s national plans. Therefore, there is a need for the Government to take concrete steps in order to resolve those concerns which continue to thwart the growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) over the years

Action Plan for Make in India Initiative of MSME 

E-Governance:

Different procedures and lack of mutual trust leads to hidden costs and slow paralysis

• Strengthen the communication between stakeholders
• Establish a proper procedure pan-India
• Improve efficiencies in service delivery
• Public Participation to be enhanced via the integration of Social Media
• Building up of a database to measure the levels of productivity of the products
• Identification of products in need of research and development

Financial Inclusion:

High cost of credit, requirements of collateral, limited access to equity capital, lack of access to global markets, and the absence of a mechanism for the revival of sick enterprises

• Frame guidelines for micro and small enterprise financing; business, registration, regulation and accreditation of MFI entities; promoting right technology solutions; and formulating a credit guarantee scheme for loans given out to micro enterprises
• Financial Education of the borrowers for empowerment
• Statutory guidelines to stipulate penalties or interest for big corporations which delay payments to SMEs
• Skill development for bankers :
  • Standardising simple format for accounting purposes for MSMEs,
  • Competent development of human resources,
  • Cultivating business ethics and standards, and
  • Imparting training to MSMEs

Steps taken:

• All loans to come under Priority Sector Lending
• Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency (MUDRA) Bank expected to partner with coordinators at the State level to provide finance to SMEs. A corpus of Rs.20,000 crore has been allocated to the bank.
• The Union Budget has proposed to set up ‘Trade Receivables Discounting System’ (TreDs), an electronic platform that will facilitate financing of trade receivables from corporates and other buyers through multiple financiers.

Employment Generation & Skill Development:

MSMEs are labour-intensive and have the capability to create more jobs to cater to a young demographic country like India, where the climatic vagaries render many unemployed in the agricultural sector.

• Training of educated unemployed youth both in conventional and most advanced production and management technology/processes
• Developing Modular Courses and training of trainers
• Developing districts wise skill development needs and training providers.
• Up-scaling in collaboration with NSDC, Ministry of Skill Development, Entrepreneurship, Youth Affairs and Sports and Ministry of Labour and Employment

Steps Taken:

• Virtual Cluster web portal, to provide facilities like common application forms, credit scoring models etc. and a platform for Industry-Academia linkages has been set-up.
• Employment Facilitation Portal enables matching of job providers and job seekers

Technology and Energy Efficiency

• Compulsory procurement of materials by public sector units from SMEs
• Setting up of common research and development facilitation centres
• Up scaling cluster approach for infrastructure development and technology support
• Augmenting the past initiatives for further absorptions
• Steps to reduce wastages and innovative designs for waste-management

Zero Effect Zero Defect Manufacturing

• Promoting Lean Manufacturing Competitiveness Scheme (LMCS) in mini-clusters for Zero Defect manufacturing
• Promoting Energy Efficient Technologies using Clean Technology
• ZED Certification scheme in consultation with QCI, Industry Association and Rating Agencies

Steps taken:

• Quality Management Standards (QMS) and Quality Technology tools (QTT): to enhance their competitiveness
• ICT Scheme: for adopting ICT tools and applications through Cloud Computing